ritum tangit, prudentiam, foliditatem, brevitatem et perfpicuitatem in fcribendis libris commendat, juftum legendorum librorum modum proponit diverfa in fcribendo vitia examinat, fingulaque exemplis probe illuftrat." the author scatters through the entire work the following fuccinct manner by Struvius, curious details concerning the animals and in his Introductio in Notitiam Rei Litteplants, but these details favor of romance. rariæ et ufum Bibliothecarum (p. 695): Among the plants, one of the firft which is "Elegantiffimus liber eft, quo fcribendi prurepresented in the engravings is the large plant called vac vac, which is made to originate fabulously in an island of America, from the tree itself vac vac, which, he fays, was the name of the plant. The fruit has naturally the shape of women hanging from the branches; when they are ripe, they fall to the ground, and, opening their mouths, cry, 'Vac vac!' The inhabitants of this island run with transports of joy towards these women-fruit; but at the end of two days they fall to duft. A ftory of this kind, fit to be told by old grandmothers to children in the winter evenings, has taken fuch hold of the Turks, that in a doualma (where are the fêtes and public rejoicings) it was reprefented as we have it in the book. They planted a tree of ordinary fize, with women made of painted pafteboard, which hung from the tree, and afterwards, detaching by fome ingenious mechanifm, fell, crying Vac vac!' "It is difficult to find the book complete and in good condition. After having had feveral copies, the plates of which were injured or wanting, I finally obtained a perfect one. D'Herbelot, at the word Tarikh hend, ftates that there is in Arabic and in Turkish a modern history (which has been tranflated from the Europeans), containing an account of the discovery of America, which the Orientals call the New World." Guillelmi Saldeni De Libris, VARIOQUE EORUM USU ET ABUSU LIBRI DUO, CUM INDICIBUS NECESSARIIS. AMSTELODAMI, ex Officina Henrici et Viduæ Theodori Boom. 1688. (Sm. 8vo.) THIS interefting little treatife On the Ufe and Abuse of Books, written by William Salden, of Utrecht, is characterized in According to Jöcher, Salden first publifhed this curious treatife under the pfeudonyme Chriftianus Liberius, with this title: 20ßißhov, five de libris fcribendis et legendis, etc. (Ultrajecti, 1681, 12mo), and he adds that the plagiarist Jac. Thomafius copied the first book in his Differtatio de Plagio Litterario. The work is divided into Two PARTS, and the First Part is subdivided into nine chapters. CHAPTER I. treats of the lovers of books, of certain perfons who have written a great deal, and of a felect class of individuals who have rendered themselves famous by their writings. The author then proceeds to describe the manner in which the ancients composed books, and the matter and form of the books themselves; he next fhows that every age has produced fome learned women, and that literary purfuits, under proper regulations, have contributed to the improvement and elevation of the female mind. CHAPTER II. is devoted to a very interesting subject—the multitude of bookswith a lift of the most celebrated libraries, obfervations on the art of printing, etc. The author difcuffes the question how far the immenfe number of books distracts the mind. He then lays down rules to enable the reader to judge of ill-written books, fuch as thofe that are written in hafte rather pro fame than pro famâ. The style of a book, he fays, ought to be modeft and fimple, fometimes elevated, according to the subject treated. In CHAPTER III. he shows that order is the foul of a book, and that unmethodical writers are always extremely The Paradise confused in the ideas which they advance. WITHIN THE REACH OF ALL MEN, In CHAPTER IV. he difcuffes the folidity of a work, and in what it confifts. CHAPTER V. treats of perfpicuity, and CHAPter VI. of brevity, and of the difference between plagiarifts and thofe who make a judicious. ufe of their erudition. CHAPTER VII. is devoted to reading in general, the immense importance of which he points out to thofe of the learned profeffions. CHAPTER VIII. treats of the choice of books, and the manner of reading the best writers to advantage. CHAPTER IX. contains an account of feveral celebrated libraries, and of different princes who have patronized science. WITHOUT LABOR, BY POWERS OF Toil and poverty will be no more among men ; The wife man examines before he judges; LONDON: JOHN BROOKS, 1836. [12m0, pp. 216.] THIS English edition is a reprint from the original, which appears, from the Englith publisher's addrefs, to have been printed at Pittsburg, in 1833. The volume ends with copies of two addreffes— "To the Honorable the Senate and the Honorable the House of Reprefentatives of the United States, in Congress affembled:" The Second Part is divided into five chapters: I. Of the indifference which many perfons have shown for books, and its principal caufes-idlenefs and avarice. II. Of the love of novelty, which infenfibly fuperfedes all affection for works of antiquity. III. Of pride, and the foolish vanity and of the learned who affect to defpife and re vile the merit of each other. IV. Of envy, that rankles in the breafts of the learned. V. Salden, in the laft chapter, gives a lift of those writers who have fallen a facrifice to envy and malice. (See Jöcher's Allgemeines Gelehrten Lexicon (Leipzig, 1751, 4to, vol. iv. pp. 49, 50). B. G. Struvius, Introductio in Notitiam Rei Litteraria et ufum Bibliothecarum, etc. (Francofurti et Lipfiæ, 1729, 8vo, p. 695). Delvenne, Biographie des Pays-Bas, Ancienne et Moderne (Mons, 1829, 8vo, tome ii. p. 367). [Cailleau], Dictionnaire Bibliographique, etc. (Paris, 1790, tome iii. pp. 481-484). Peignot, Dictionnaire de Bibliologie (Paris, 1802, 8vo, tome ii. p. 401). The Polyanthea (London, 1804, 8vo, vol. i. p. 201). «To his Excellency, Andrew Jackson, Prefident of the United States" both of which are dated Pittsburg, February 21, 1833. Thefe addreffes were each accompanied with a copy of the work, and petitioned for affiftance in the development of the author's fchemes. The forces which Mr. Etzler propofes to use in order to abolish the neceffity of manual labor, are three: wind, the tides, or the ocean, and the heat of the fun; the first to be applied by a combination, as it were, of windmills; the fecond by means of large floating maffes, which fhould rife and fall with the tide; and the third by a series of mirrors which fhould reflect the light and heat of the fun to a focus. By thefe means, immenfe elevated refervoirs fhould be filled with water, and serve for ftorehouses, as it were, of the power needed to perform every operation neceffary to fup- lobiblion I might find what I want, I ply the entire population with all the lux uries of civilization. have taken the liberty of defcribing this little volume, which certainly is "curious and rare," although it is not "ancient ;" and asking if any one can give me any further information concerning Mr. Etzler's life or The adaptations of machinery by which all the neceffary operations were to be performed, had been invented by Mr. Etzler, but were kept as his fecret, to be difclofed labors. when the opportunity was offered him for practically testing their applicability. des Femmes. H. DE MIL HOMMES JEN Y A TREUVE UN BON, et DE TOUTES LES FEMMES PAS UNE. By the ufe of wind alone, he calculates Alphabet de l'Imperfection | et Malice that he will get a power "eighty thoufand times greater than all men on earth could effect by the united exertions of their nerves!" By employing his feries of mirrors, he gets not only greater degrees of heat than are now poffible, but suggests an ingenious modification of the steam-engine, in which, by the great heat of his mirrors, fmall quantities of water should be instantly converted into steam, and thus great power be obtained at no expense of fuel, and with no danger of explosion. Mr. Etzler proposed to raise a company for the purpofe of carrying his fchemes into operation; and also promises to tell us if he received any ernment. Revue, corrigé et augmenté d'un friant Deffert, et de plufieurs Hiftories en cette cinquième Edition, pour les Courtizans et partifans de la Femme Mondaine. Par JACQUES OLIVIER, Licentier aux Loix, et en Droid Canon. Dedié à la plus mauvaise du Monde. A Lyon, chez JEAN GOY, en rue Noire, touchant la gueule du Lyon. M.DC.LXV. [12m0, pp. viii. 326.] THIS little book is the culmination of the flanders against the sex, which began in the fpeech of the original father of the hu"The woman whom thou gavest man race, -a attention or aid from the gov- me, tempted me"- faying which has been continued ever fince, in the fame spirit, by those who refemble their great progenitor in temper and character. His schemes were vast, perhaps too much fo for fuccefs; they were certainly too much fo to induce many prudent capitalifts" to invest in them. Balzac, in his Z. Marcas, fpeaks of the class of men who are habitually prevented from realizing enormously profitable schemes by the paltry want of a five-franc piece. Perhaps our author belongs to that clafs; but no one who reads thoughtfully a page printed by a steampower prefs fhould lightly doubt of any theory for a new mechanical adaptation of an, as yet, unused power. The first edition was printed in 1617. and occafioned a violent controverfy, which has lafted even down to our own time. The work opens with an Epiftre Dedicatoire, à la plus mauvaife du monde, extracts from which will give the best idea of the spirit of the book: "FEMME : Si ton efprit altier & volage pouvoit cognoiftre le fort de ta mifère & la vanité de ta condition, tu fuirois la lumière du Soleil, chercherois les tenêbres, entrerois dans les grottes & cavernes, maudirois ta fortune, regretterois ta naiffance, & aurois horreur de toy-mefme: mais l'aveuglement extreme, qui t'ofte cefte cognoiffance, faict que tu demeures dans le monde, la plus imparfaicte creature de l'univers, l'efcume de nature, le feminaire Although naturally interested in the hiftory of those men who fought by their lives to "leave this old world better than they found it," I have never before heard of Mr. Etzler or his book. Thinking that perhaps de malheurs, la fource de querelles, le jouet des through the circle of readers of The Phi- infenfez, le fleau de sagesse, le tison d'Enfer, l'al de C. Nobody (Labaume, fuivi de frag- But for the book itself, which I examments des Vepres de Gnide, par le même, ined at the auction-room. It contained et de la Veillée de Venus). Genève, 1797. the fame account of C. Nobody, the re24mo." puted author; and doubtlefs it was from As it is true that catalogues are most this account, which feems to fhow on its valuable repofitories of bibliographical hints, face that it was intended as a piece of and as this one of coftly books was made facetious deception, that the ftory of Noby M. Potier, one of the most competent body's life crept into the Dictionnaire Hiflibraires of Paris, I thought this offered a torique. The work itfelf is fuch as only chance to afcertain if Nobody was really Nobody would want to claim; it is faceanybody. tious, and that is enough. Still, its fmall merit did not prevent its felling for over twenty-three francs, a price which I thought too high, although nobody at the fale seemed aftonifhed at it. In juftice, however, to the fomebody who paid fo much, I fhould add that the copy came from the library of Pixérecourt. Turning, therefore, to the fame Dictionnaire Hytorique-which is really an excellent work, though it mentions Nobody as an author-under the name Labaume, I am referred as follows: Achards, Baume, Griffet. Under the first name I find Eleazar, Fr. Achards de la Baume, who died in 1741. Under the name Baume I find Fr. Antoine Melchior de la Baume, a deputy to PARIS, January, 1863. H. the States-General in 1789, who died in Description Historique et Bibliographique 1794, and in whom the family ended. Under the name Griffet I find Antoine Gilbert Griffet de la Baume, who died in 1805, and who tranflated Evelina, Sterne's Sermons, The Children of the Abbey, the first two volumes of the Afiatic Researches, and many other English and German books, and who alfo wrote a comedy in verfe called Galatée. His brother, Charles Griffet de la Baume, who died in 1800, was alfo a literary man. Here we have three perfons who may, any one of them, be NOBODY, although not one of them perhaps ever expected to affume that chara&er before pofterity. The Nouvelle Biographie Générale afcribes the piece to Antoine Gilbert Griffet de la Baume, and thus refcues the other two pretenders from being nobodies. The mystery, however, which always hangs about the works of Nobody, is ftill vifible here. You will notice that the name is fpelt Beaume and Baume. Still, it is evident that Nobody is fomebody. DE LA COLLECTION DE FEU M. LE COMTE H. D THIS catalogue embraces only a portion of the library of the Count de la Bedoyere that portion relating to the French Revolution. The rest of his books were fold at auction in Paris-the first part in 1861, and the second in 1862. The firft of these catalogues is diftinguished for the fine condition of the books it contains; in the fecond, which feems to have been made up of thofe rejected from the firft, they are almoft all broché, or unbound. It was of this collector that it was faid his library was always locked with a triple lock, of which he had loft the key. This portion of the Count's library is offered for private fale; the price afked is 160,000 francs ($32,000). It has been hoped that the Bibliothèque Impériale would buy the entire collection, and thus : Matters have therefore remained in this condition during the last two years, fince the death of the Count de la Bedoyere. The publication of the catalogue, fo long promised, affords an opportunity to eftimate the value of the collection. prevent its lofs to France. But the direc- articles; among them nearly fix thousand tors of that inftitution do not feem to be pamphlets, pofters, and placards; nearly inclined to do fo, for the following reafon: four thousand volumes of hiftory, memoirs, The Bibliothèque Impériale has already almanacs, fong-books, etc.; two thoufand many duplicates of the pieces in this col- newspapers of the period; more than four lection; and if they should buy the collec- thoufand portraits and caricatures; with a tion, and fell their duplicates, the money quantity of autograph letters, etc., etc. Althus received would pass from their hands most every man and every event of imporinto those of the state. tance during the Revolution is here reprefented. It is an unexplored mine the value of which cannot be estimated; for the Count himself was rather a collector than a student, and, as we have feen, was as difinclined to allow others to make use of his materials as he was to use them himself; while the prefTo make a fimilar collection would be ent catalogue is hardly more than an invenimpoffible. The Count commenced to tory-its editor, M. France, feeming to make this fifty years ago, and, with an confider it only a happy chance for him to abundant fortune, enjoyed chances which exprefs his perfonal fympathies with the will never occur again. The publications Bourbons, and his hatred of the entire of the times of the Revolution, being al- Revolution. It is a pity that the preparamost entirely of an ephemeral character, tion of the catalogue had not been given to are of course exceedingly rare, and are be- fome competent bibliographer who would coming more and more fo every day. The have appreciated the opportunity it afforded Count met alfo with fome "happy chances," for making an hiftorical study of permanent of which he took advantage. An advocate value. If this collection is not retained in of the court of Paris, M. Deschiens, who France, let us hope that perhaps it may be lived during the Revolution itself, formed fecured for America, either for the Conhis collection during those times, and thus greffional Library or for fome one of our obtained defirable copies. It was from his public institutions. own collection that M. Defchiens obtained the material for his Bibliographie des Fournaux (Paris, 1829, 8vo, pp. 680). At M. Defchiens's death, his collection was bought entire by the Count de la Bedoyere. This acceffion to his stock, together with others, lefs notable, and the conftant additions made by purchase (for, being known as a collector, and a generous one, who followed Selden's rule of paying bookfellers their prices, he met the reward which Selden promised, of having things offered to him that he would never otherwife have feen), have made his collection reach its enormous proportions. This catalogue contains notices of more than a hundred thousand VOL. II.-F Satirical Poem on Booksellers. [From Pecunia Obediunt Omnia: Money Mafters For as much profit as other traders will; THE bookfeller, for ready cafh will fel Or Third, or Fourth, with 'mendments and addi tion. |